Fire & Rescue: Proactive Resilience Training for Firefighters Facing Incident Stress

Jersey Fire & Rescue: Proactive resilience training for firefighters facing incident stress. Practical skills for trauma, pressure, organisational change.

The challenge

Most fire services wait for mental health problems to emerge, then react with counselling and critical incident debriefing. Jersey Fire and Rescue took a different approach: proactive resilience skills training that prevents problems before they start. Addressing both incident-related trauma and organisational stressors. The programme equipped firefighters and leaders with practical tools they could use immediately.

How we helped

Favouring a pro-active approach we developed Resilience leader skills for challenging situations both incident related and day-to-day. The results were transformational:

The result? Firefighter senior leaders reporting they’re more productive physically, emotionally, and mentally, with practical tools they use immediately in high-pressure situations.”

RESULTS THAT CONNECTS DIRECTLY TO BUSINESS IMPACT

Drop in staff anxiety risk

0 %

Reducing from 100% to 40%

Decrease in worrying

0 %

Reducing from 50% to 17%

Decrease in people feeling

0 %

nervous, anxious or on edge

Decrease in being restless

0 %

That it is hard to sit still

"Stress & strains become much more manageable. The time you spend you reap back in planning, preparation and what you need to achieve. If we had the budget to train everyone, we wouldn't think twice about it."

"This has made me look and approach leadership situations differently and I have a much calmer approach in my personal life.”

“ I am far more productive. It’s helped both physically and mentally. It helps me deal with the pressures and stress that we get as firefighters and leaders.”

“This gave us skills that we could pass on and give our teams. Skills that they can call upon when they go home from the job. I really liked that.”

"I am far more productive, and the resilience programme helped me physically, emotionally and mentally. It helps me deal with the pressures and stress we get as firefighters and leaders. I'd recommend your resilience training to anyone in Emergency Services. It's that good."

"There is a lot of training out there that tells you the what and the why but it doesn't show you how. The resilience programme focused on how and I liked that. I could immediately take things away and get on with it."

Martin - Station commander

A FORMULA FOR THRIVING

Our programmes focus on organisational and psycho-social factors to raise resilience levels in people and create the conditions where people thrive. It’s an essential differentiation as resilience is often thought of as ‘bounce back’, and some mental health programmes have a small section on building resilience.

Attendees reporting increased ability

To deal with pressure and stress 100%

Reported increased ability

To think accurately in challenging times 100%

Saw a direct link between the skills

And positive mental health 100%

Saw a direct link between the skills

And a culture where people thrive 100%